The evolution of the geographical concentration of tertiary sector activities in Europe
Hugues Jennequin♠
LEO (Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orléans – UMR CNRS 6221)
Version: February 2007
ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to measure the concentration of tertiary activities in Europe. Usually, these sectors are depicted as 'invisible goods' by international economics theories. However, the expansion of the tertiary sector in developed economies, liberalisation and an increasing number of studies argue that services have a serious influence upon the economy, most notably in the field of economic geography. We will measure the concentration of tertiary sector activities, breaking this field down into 21 distinct sectors. We will show that Knowledge Intensive Business Services are highly concentrated, and are becoming even more so. This result points towards the desirability of explicitly including these activities in "NEG" (New Economic Geography) models.
♠ : Jennequin Hugues, post-doctorant à l'université d'Orléans et chercheur associé au CEPN – 99 avenue JeanBaptiste Clément F-93430 Villetaneuse –
[email protected], http://jennequin.eu.
